Otis Regrets... or not

Wall Street Journal won’t deliver on customer service

Residents of Saratoga Springs, NY have been noticeably more clueless over the last two months because of delivery problems with the Wall Street Journal. Apparently there is some kind of turf war among carriers. So every morning I go online to https://services.wsj.com, sign in with my account number and login, and report the missed delivery.

A few minutes later I get an email that confirms my delivery problem and tells me I will be credited for the missed issue and the local office is working on the problem. It then goes on to advise me: “In the future, please go to services.wsj.com to report any problems with your delivery. It’s easy and quick to use, and our delivery staff is notified directly from the site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

See the problem? Since that’s exactly what I did, WSJ assuming I did not do it puts into question the rest of the message. And the takeaway is that I assume they are in fact doing nothing about my delivery problem, which in fact they are not.

Then, every few days they vary the mix and send an email that says “To make sure we provide the field office with everything they need to resolve this issue, please answer any of the questions below that apply to your situation.

Location questions:
— When did the problem begin?
— Where is the paper usually delivered?” Etc.

Once I rose to the bait and responded that nothing had changed about my delivery situation (the house has been here for 130 years) but it didn’t actually make any difference. Nor should it, since this is boilerplate that some helpful scribe inserted in the rotation (“if missed deliver complaints = >5, then print ‘n’ ”) so I wouldn’t see the same thing constantly. Instead of fixing the problem, they’ve focused on creating an extended library of customer service correspondence for people who get the same message over and over again.

The lesson here: If you have a contact strategy as elaborate as this one, then there’s something wrong at the core that needs to be addressed. Handle it, instead of asking some copywriter to paper over it. Oh, and don’t insert a marketing message when a customer is already pissed off, such as “Here’s an opportunity to give a great gift at a great price: The Wall Street Journal Print and Online for just $119!” Hey, I could give it to my dad… then he and I could both not receive the paper.

Chevrolet shoots self in crankcase, creates badvertising instant classic

You can’t make this stuff up. The VP, I mean Vice President of Marketing at GM, I mean General Motors, has asked all employees to stop calling Chevy by that casual name and refer to it by the formal “Chevrolet” henceforth. The request presumably extends to the brand’s new agency, Goodby Silverstein, but hopefully did not originate with them.

“We’d ask that whether you’re talking to a dealer, reviewing dealer advertising, or speaking with friends and family, that you communicate our brand as Chevrolet moving forward,” read a memo which was also signed by the Chevrolet Vice President for Sales and Service. “When you look at the most recognized brands throughout the world, such as Coke [they mean “Coca-Cola” of course] or Apple for instance, one of the things they all focus on is the consistency of their branding. Why is this consistency so important? The more consistent a brand becomes, the more prominent and recognizable it is with the consumer.”

Of course, you can also make a brand recognizable through generations of casual use until it becomes part of the national vocabulary as well as the title of several Facebook fan pages and the auto dealership of its chief NASCAR representative, Jeff Gordon Chevy. And presumably Don McLean will be asked to return to Café Lena here in Saratoga, where he originally penned “American Pie”, and revise its most memorable line to “drove my Chevrolet to the [whatever Chevrolet rhymes with] but the [whatever] was dry”.

The New York Times article which broke this story reports that there now is a “cuss jar” at Chevrolet headquarters and employees must deposit a coin every time they use the forbidden word. Once it’s full the proceeds will be used for a “team building activity”. Times reporter Richard S. Chang suggests that activity will probably not be a Mexican dinner at Chevy’s.

Thanks to Carol Maxwell to bringing this to my attention. And thank you America for making possible this badvertising epiphany. Your tax dollars at work.

Taking bad marketers to the woodshed

Did you ever get punished as a child for doing something naughty, because a parent or teacher didn’t believe you even though you were telling the truth? The problem here is a lack of authenticity—or, to borrow a favorite word from ace copywriter and gore movie maven Herschell Gordon Lewis— verisimilitude.

Consumers in general tend to be skeptical of marketers, which is why verisimilitude is very important. In addition to actually being true, a claim must APPEAR to be true or you break the spell and lose the sale. Today’s badvertising classic is a case in point.

The original State Seal label — Original State Seal Label (from a plaque at the springs)

I live near the bubbling natural springs of Saratoga, NY. Folks have been coming here to “take the waters” for centuries and the greatest number of springs, as well as the classic bath houses, are located in a park which is owned by the state.

Early in the 1900s an entrepreneur had the idea to bottle the water and sell it nationally. To emphasize the official connection, it was called “State Seal” water and the antique-y state seal of New York was actually shown on the label. Millions were sold and FDR became a big promoter of the springs and the water.

New State Seal Label — State Seal Spring Water label, c. 1980

Fast forward to the 1980s, and another entrepreneur had the idea to revive the brand. But he/she picked the wrong thing to revive. The new water is again called “State Seal” but the label design is bland and modern. Within a few years the revived brand was defunct.

The original State Seal water had verisimilitude. It looked like the kind of packaging a civic department might come up with if it had no clue about marketing but was simply trying to promote healthy water to its citizens. The revived water had none of this charm and authenticity. The revivalist probably thought the old design was out of date when in fact it was the essence of the brand.

Fetch me that paddle, ma. I think some marketer needs a whuppin’ here….

Good news from bad advertising

You know the economy is improving when the incidence of bad advertising and clueless products starts to rise. In tough times, every single product and marketing manager has to justify its existence. But today there’s a place for talent like the creative committee that came up with this slogan for Perkins: Our people deliver more.

Get it? It’s a delivery company. But when some copywriter (not a great one, but at least with a pulse) came up with the slogan “our people deliver” the committee was not comfortable. “Any delivery company can make that claim,” the CEO or CFO perhaps pointed out. “I’ve got it,” yelled a board member. “Let’s add a ‘more’ after the catchphrase and turn it into a USP.” Well he didn’t exactly say that because he doesn’t know what a catchphrase or USP is. But see what he did? Took a workable slogan and turned it into a generic statement.

This is a company with quite a tin ear for marketing. Take a look at the Perkins home page pictured here. Does anybody else feel a little queasy with the juxtaposiition of the juicy steak and the guy with his foot on the bumper of the car linked by the recycling logo that makes it look like one is turning into the other? Turns out Perkins is both a foodservice delivery company AND a janitorial/sanitation/laundry company. I can see that the same hapless copywriter pointing out that these are rather dissimilar services that maybe shouldn’t be shown side by side on the page, and I see CEO barking “why the hell not?”

Lucky for this misplaced copywriter, a job will soon be opening up at one of the recognizable brands in America: Lysol. They are now advertising the “No Touch Hand Soap System” because—did you know—germs can get on the handle of the soap pump? Wait a minute, I thought that was why you have soap. Do people not know to use the soap after they dispense it into their hands? I think Lysol is underestimating its audience (even the people who are watching “All My Children” which is where I saw it advertised) and indeed, this product is already being remaindered at Overstock.com. The product is on its way out and the product manager may not be far behind.

Happy days are here again.

How to write a mission statement

This week I ran across the website of the Green Cleaners Council, whose “About Us” page states in part:

The Green Cleaners Council counts the many ways a professional dry cleaner can be ‘green’ by providing cleaners and consumers with defined environmental sustainability benchmarks to judge them by.

It is our mission to provide the necessary gravitas, which has been lacking regarding green marketing and greenwashing in the dry cleaning industry. We afford consumers a verifiable mechanism for judging how GREEN their cleaner is, while giving professional cleaners a vehicle to herald their genuine environmental accomplishments and strategies to help them achieve their green goals for the future.

In other words, this trade association provides consumers with tools to evaluate the environmental conscience of a dry cleaner, while providing the dry cleaner with marketing tools to show how green they are. This is what they do, but is it a “mission”? And are they helping their cause with grandiose words like “gravitas” and “herald”?

What went wrong here is that the Green Cleaners Council confused its mission with its marketing. A mission statement is not inherently a bad thing, but it should be primarily internally focused. Especially in a young and chaotic organization, it helps people keep their eye on the ball. It can remind them that their purpose is to serve customers or improve the world in some way, not just to make money.

A nice article on mission statements can be found on the FastCompany website, called “How to Write a Mission Statement that Isn’t Dumb.” The author, Nancy Lubin, points out that most corporate mission statements are like Hallmark greetings while a good one should encapsulate what the “Built to Last” folks call a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG for short). Here’s a successful example, from Microsoft:

A computer on every desk and in every home, all running Microsoft software.

Here’s one that is more amorphous, and the company turned out to be less successful in keeping its eye on the prize:

Respect, integrity, communication, and excellence.

And here’s one that might well have been scribed by the marcom writer at the Green Cleaners Council in a former position:

It is our job to continually foster world-class infrastructures as well as to quickly create principle-centered sources to meet our customer’s needs.

A mission statement shouldn’t be written by the marketing department, but by the leaders of the organization who are responsible for living up to it. (Though I’d say it’s okay to have a professional writer on tap in case the execs get too full of themselves.) And mission statements aren’t marketing and shouldn’t be featured in your marketing as a general rule. It’s a lot easier to look silly than to effectively communicate or persuade, as the bad examples demonstrate.

By the way, the middle mission statement is from Enron Corporation. And the last one isn’t for a real company but was created by the “Dilbert Mission Statement Generator”. It isn’t available online anymore, unfortunately, maybe because too many real companies were using it to write their mission statements.

Toyota pays for my dead battery

A few months ago, I wrote about the hybrid battery that failed in my 2001 Prius at 71,000 miles, generating a $3700 repair bill because the battery was recently out of warranty. It’s time I explained the reason for my lack of follow-up posts.

Back in mid-February I got a call from the general manager at the dealership which had done the repair. He was calling not because of the rather robust online discussion of my experience, but because I had given the experience an unfavorable rating in a mail survey. (Yes, good to know at least someone at Toyota is paying attention to what their customers think.) After we discussed my issues he agreed that the matter had been handled inappropriately at his dealership and said he’d go to bat and try to get at least a partial reimbursement from Toyota. He also asked me to forward to him the letter I’d sent to American Toyota President James Lentz, summarizing my issue.

Two days later, on 2/18, this manager emailed me that:

Just got done speaking with my Toyota Factory Representative, she agreed with my assessment of the issue as well she agrees with your points you made to Mr. Lentz.

Based on that conversation it’s my guess you will probably receive a 100% reimbursement check in about 8 weeks at your Saratoga Springs address. Please understand I’m making no promises, but I feel it looks real good.

Based on that 8 weeks, I would have received the check in mid-April. When it didn’t arrive, I checked in with him and heard that:

Money is coming soon, should be no problem…..

Well, the money finally did arrive, on 5/25/10, and it was indeed a full reimbursement. I’m happy not to be out of pocket $3700, but I’m also happy that Toyota was willing to pay it which I don’t think they would have done if a huge number of Prius batteries was failing just out of warranty like mine did. (The cover letter made no reference to my history, by the way, just referring to it as a “goodwill check”.) So good news for me and good news for other Prius owners.

Google blows it with new layout

The other day I was talking about the Unique Selling Proposition and how valuable it is when a marketer can distinguish itself by claiming a benefit or feature that cannot easily be claimed by another marketer. I mentioned that often you can do that simply by staking a claim to a generic benefit nobody else is talking about… make it your own, and anybody who later says “we have that too” would look foolish.

Google, though we take them for granted today, has a pretty unusual marketing history: they climbed to the top in a competitive field (remember when we all searched with Altavista?) by just being better than everybody else. So it was so very appropriate that Google’s interface also looked different. So stark and simple, just that search box in the middle of a blank page. The drama of unused white space… never a better example.

So now we have the new Google interface that has left this behind. You get a busy page with results in the middle, Adwords on the right, and a menu of related results on the left. But more important, you get a page that looks like everybody else’s search results page.

Not many marketers can claim the high ground that Google legitimately appropriated with its old page. To voluntarily cede your USP…. for that is what they are doing with this new generic interface… is a bone headed decision.

It occurred to me as I was thinking about this that grandfather was a proud member of the Dallas Bonehead Club. I am not sure of all they did but I know a core value was to be silly and irrelevant. Good for them in that straight laced Southern business community, maybe not so good in today’s competitive business envronment. Bad move, Google.

The right way to use sweepstakes in your marketing

I got an email last week from Citicard inviting me to switch to paperless statements and be entered for a chance at a $500 gift card. Well, I already switched to paperless but I’ll click the link and enter anyway. The link asks me to log in to my account and I do, and I’m told I am already signed up for paperless. No mention of the sweepstakes. D’oh! Now I am an angry camper.

There are several things that could have done better in the above example. First, clean your list so you don’t email people you don’t want to get the offer. Second, don’t piss off loyal customers… if they’re going to send me the invite, how hard would it have been to build a landing page that says “you’re already paperless, congratulations, we’ll enter you in the sweeps anyway”? Third, don’t break the law… which is what Citi may be doing with “consideration” in which some groups are ineligible for a sweeps drawing.

Sweepstakes are a great way to push people over the edge and make them respond to your marketing. They’re also very affordable because you can control the number of prizes. Instead of sending a $10 Amazon gift certificate to everybody who fills out a reg form (and paying for the fulfillment as well as the cost of the gift), it may be far cheaper to have just one $1000 certificate and everybody who fills out that form is eligible.

A good sweeps prize will have some relationship to the audience and the marketing message. I do a lot of lead generation promos to tech audiences and the chance to win the latest gizmo (the iPad right now, iPod touch last year, Palm Vx back in the day…) is like catnip. A bad sweeps prize is one your management comes up with that is goofy and takes lots of words to describe and distracts from your core selling message (an all expenses paid trip to your corporate meeting, even if it’s in Hawaii, is a good example).

The most basic legal rule is to avoid “consideration”…. you cannot have some requirement that people must go through a certain process to enter, or certain people are ineligible. The way to avoid it is to have in fine print in your sweepstakes rules that anybody can enter by sending in a 3×5 card. And you do need rules, and you need to put them in the right place, which is why you do need legal help if you’re going to do a sweeps properly.

Back in my magazine promo days there were several firms who offered a turnkey package of writing your sweeps rules, picking a winner and indemnifying you against fraud and legal problems for $10,000. I am sure the price is higher now but a service like this is still a bargain in terms of peace of mind. Even so, most of the small to midsize marketers seem to copy an existing set of rules, do their best to keep it honest, and keep their fingers crossed they haven’t done something illegal by mistake.

Finally, be prepared for the objection from your sales department that the leads are no good because they are sweepstakes-generated. In the one test I’ve been involved in where a client carefully monitored the process, they got way more leads with a sweepstakes but also a significant increase in qualified leads, as measured by their serious intent and qualifications as potential buyers.

It just makes sense that a sweeps is going to attract an incremental number of perfectly good prospects who were on the fence about registering, or simply too busy with too many advertising contacts, and this pushes them over. What’s needed is a prequalification process, through the questions on the registration form or a qualification precall from someone who is not an expensive salesperson or telemarketing firm, to see if they are really serious. If not, the respondent never enters the sales system but they still get to enter the sweepstakes. That’s the law.

Our salami satisfies everybody. (The red sauce topic)

I have been trying ever since I arrived in Upstate New York to understand the appeal of the “red sauce place”. This is a neighborhood restaurant that serves a limited menu of Italian-American staples, and many people are passionate about their favorite local spot. To me the food seems one-dimensional (which objectively it is, since the identical red sauce will make its appearance on three or four dishes at your table) and often rather high priced (I’m talking $20 or more for a pasta dinner with a food cost of maybe $4).

Last weekend, I finally got it while enjoying a pressed prosciutto sandwich and an antipasto platter at Mike’s Deli in the Arthur Street Market in the Bronx. Arthur Street, variously called the “real” Little Italy or the “original” Little Italy, is full of strollers all of whom know each other and are happily catching up as they munch on foodstuffs or dart in and out of shops. Our plan (which I recommend) was to fortify ourselves with lunch prior to visiting the Bronx Zoo. We were there before the sit down places opened at noon, so we wandered into the retail market and found Mike’s.

The food was good but not great (once the hunger subsided and I took a look around I realized there are two eating establishments in the marketplace, and Mike’s is the less popular) but what was great was the abundance. Choose your own pre-made sandwich from a pile higher than your head and they will griddle and plate it for you. Or design your own. Or order a sampler of the day’s entrees (Veal Saltimbucca, Chicken Marco Polo, Calimari in cream sauce and Linguini with Shrimp) for $6.95. Or…

What sums it up is Mike’s slogan, on the waitress’ t-shirt: Our salami satisfies everybody. That, I realized, is the litmus test of the red sauce place: the delivery of pleasure through food. And abundance has to be at the core of this, because you need plenty of volume if not variety to carry you through a lengthy table experience.

And that is why the upstate red sauce places charge so much. They may not have the best ingredients, they may not have the most imaginative preparations, but they sure do give you a ridiculous amount of food. (Invariably, reviewers who give a red sauce place five stars on Yelp will talk about how they had enough food for another meal the following day.) And in retrospect the taste of the food is mingled with the pleasure of the conversation and maybe a few glasses of wine and ecco, a great red sauce place.

Perecca's Tomato Pie — Tomato Pie fresh from the oven at Perreca's in Schenectady.

I have written previously about the San Marzano sauce I made from scratch, with organic tomatoes just picked in the fields, using a recipe from Marcella Hazan’s Classic Italian Cooking. It is just one of three basic red sauces in that book, and Tomato Sauce III (a light, briefly cooked sauce with butter and a halved onion that tastes to me like the essence of summer) is a world apart from Tomato Sauce I which I made. Start adding ingredients, to make for example Ragu Bolognaise, and your red sauce repertoire branches out considerably. Which is to say I believe the numerous red sauce places I’ve sampled are coasting.

Tomatoes lend themselves beautifully to canning (so it’s silly that Yelpers who want to disparage a place will carp that “the red sauce tastes like it came out of a can”) and it’s easy enough to make a sauce better than 90% of what I’ve had so far by opening a can of San Marzanos and cooking it down with the addition of some sugar and tomato paste for intensity. The result is pretty close to what they spread on the tomato pie at Perreca’s. It’s 30 miles down the road in Schenectady, but I’ve decided this is my neighborhood red sauce place until something better comes along.

The broken arm

Back in the 1980s when I was still wearing a suit as an account supervisor, I had a wrenching experience. The 8 year old daughter of my office manager broke her arm at school and her mother, at the office, could not go to comfort her because she had to catch a plane for a new business meeting in Denver.

It was painful to listen to the conversation between mother and daughter on the phone, the mother telling the daughter that she was going to be just fine but mommy has to go on a business trip. I wondered I would be up to this if it happened to my kid. As it turned out, no. I shortly buried my suit in the back yard and that manager joined a religious community.

I thought about this today when one of the superstar realtor pair who recently sold our house disappeared because his daughter broke her arm at a school play. No explanations, no excuses, simply gone, tending to her at the hospital. His business partner was ready to fill in for him but no problem. This is the way it is supposed to be. As crazy as the world is, the values among the people I deal with today are on a more even keel.

Get well fast Audrey, and I hope you get some cool drawings on your cast.